Weeds
by Brain and Eggs
Summary: You know what weeds are don't you? There flowers, whose virtues have yet to be discovered.


"What do you want me to say?" He asked, his voice tremulous and words shaky.

"I want you…to care." He replied in quiet passion that burned bright in his hazel chocolate eyes.

Nigel paused briefly, his eyes glistened.

"I do care."

"Are you sure about that?" Jacob asked, all of this suddenly making him furious and exhausted at the same time as trying to understand the perplexing man in his life.

"What do you mean?"

"Ever since I met you, it's been me second to everything else in your life." His words felt raw and foreign on his tongue, not allowing them to penetrate deeper than they had to.

Nigel stared at him, his eyes stony.

"I have never thought you were second to anything, or anyone."

"Oh really, what about the magazine? What about constantly being at that woman's beck and call? What about being the friend for everybody else? Being there for everybody else, but me? For six years?!"

The bald man ran a hand over his scalp, "I didn't know you felt this way."

"Yes you did, you just didn't want to admit it." Jacob replied half-truth and half wishing to hurt his lover in a strike of vicious hate.

"Admit what? That the man who loves me doesn't support when all I do is support you. I come to every single one of your openings, try not to talk too much about the fashion world. I haven't introduced you to my friends because you don't feel comfortable in that environment, so I spend time with you and your friends."

"Well, that is what you're supposed to do in a relationship." He replied heatedly, not liking the turn of this argument from across the living room.

"You don't." Nigel shot back.

"Oh you're just being ridiculous now."

"You didn't come to Paris. You didn't come with to the hospital when my father had his heart attack." Eyes blazed leaving a burning shadow in their wake.

"You didn't want me to come."

Nigel shook his head at the man he had loved for as long as he could remember loving anyone. And in that precise moment of looking into his eyes. He couldn't remember why.

"Yes I did."

"I'm sorry, it's just. Your job, this never ending parade of taffeta, pencil skirts and I don't know ... sequined purses. None of it is me."

"Well it's me. You've always known that."

"Yeah, but now I guess it's time you made a choice. Me or this psychedelic world that you live in. Me or the magazine."

He frowned for six years he had dealt with the put downs, sarcastic comments, and deliberately making sure to not include him in the world he knew that Jacob thought was beneath him. He hadn't analysed at the time why his impassioned speech to Andrea was one he wished he could have delivered to Jacob at home.

"You're making me choose between who I am, and you?"

"The magazine is just what you do, is that really as important as us?"

"That magazine is not what I do Jake, it's who I am."

"So you are going to choose between that, and me?"

"Do you understand that Runway is where I feel I belong, it's the single most precious thing in my life that I actually love and care about after years of not feeling like I fit in anywhere?!"

"Well that's just bullshit."

"Yeah, well I don't care if you think its bullshit. It's still mine." Cloudy, but determined eyes cut him whole. Jacob stared at Nigel for fewer moments than what even felt like a second, before walking away from him, not looking back.

Nigel stared at the floor, before removing his glasses, and sitting at the edge of the coffee table, placing his head in hands.

Exhaustion and tears and feeling oh so weary from it all.

...

"So you and Miranda are scheduled to be at the benefit at eight." Andy replied before, stabbing her lettuce and chewing briefly before staring at Nigel. He had been so quiet the past few days.

"Nigel are you okay?"

"Mhhm? Oh yeah I'm fine. I just…finished a relationship I was in."

"I didn't know you'd been seeing anyone. The past couple of months?" Andy asked, concern colouring her vision.

Nigel stared at the girl with the bright eyes and smiled sadly, aside from Miranda nobody had known.

"No. Six years."

Andy was silent, her face ineloquently shocked.

"Four months. Two weeks. Three days. Two hours, or something like that."

Nigel looked down, pushing his chicken salad away from him. His appetite disappearing with each moment.

Andy reached out and covered her warm hand over her friends cold one. Nigel smirked and patted her hand back.

"But it's okay. He wanted me to be someone I wasn't. And he clearly thought he wanted someone…better."

A tear slipped out of Andy's eye, listening to the man speak the words she would never think him capable of saying. Ever.

"Anyone, I better go talk to Pam about the autumn shoot." He stood and brushed invisible lint of his suit jacket not looking into the eyes that he knew watched him to the elevators.

...

The time was midnight and Nigel stood, stretching his body from the hours he had spent hunched at his desk, rectifying another mistake before he allowed it to cross paths with his hurricane of a fashion nova leader. He turned around when a soft throat cleared.

Andy stood in the doorway, clearly ready to go home, wrapped warmly in layers upon layers of a delicious ensemble that made him proud.

"Everything okay? "He asked.

Andy stepped forward into his office handing him a bouquet of purple tulips. His favourite flower. But when had he told her?

He gently took it from her hand, looking at her quizzically.

"Nigel, I just wanted to say. Whoever this guy was, he clearly didn't know when he had a better love. The best love." Her eyes shone for him.

He felt a sob quiet within his throat, as tears slipped from his eyes. Before he whispered, "Thank you."

She nodded and stepped forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Before exiting quietly, swiftly to let Nigel absorb what she had said. Something that was nothing but the truth.

Nigel sat back down at his desk cupping the gentle flowers.

"She is right you know." He looked up, stunned as Miranda stood in the doorway with coat and purse.

Nigel smiled, "Would you ever tell her that?"

"Absolutely not. But you know I have said it so it must be true. I think just this once. You need to listen."

For the first time in what felt like a long time, he smiled at the slightly melted ice blue eyes that gazed at him.

"Thank you."

She smiled and turned, as she walked away she saw him smile at the flowers that shone in the reflection of the glass doors.

_The purple tulip represents royalty. Their presence in a bouquet can __symbolize nobility, strength, passion and love._


End file.
